Friday, March 8, 2013

During my trial, these are the top six things I will have to
say in my defence. They are the reasons I will eventually smother my housemate Apples
in her sleep:

1. Cheese snow.

Cheese snow is a horrible, hateful invention spawned by my
fantastic, top of the line, $900 food processor and Apple’s complete inability
to plan two hours in advance. Because we don’t eat much cheese, we often freeze
parts of blocks. Then Apple’s realises she wants cheese, but it really needs to
thaw overnight.

Turns out if you put frozen cheese through a fine grater, it
turns into this fine, powder snow-like flour. Words cannot accurately describe
how horrific this stuff is. It’s like Heston Blumenthal became evil and decided
to punish the world with cheese. I can’t even see the stuff without throwing up
a little and needing to scrub my hands for an hour.

2. GTFO of my
bathroom.

Apples is obsessed with my bathroom. We have one each and
hers always looks like it’s the lone bathroom in a sorority house. Every time I
am forced to go in there, I wonder if a kegger happened and who that person is
passed out in the bathtub.

The odd thing is, she never seems to use anything in my
bathroom, she just hangs out in there doing annoying things. Things like
turning off my toothbrush when I set it to charge and moving things around.
When I finish a shampoo or a razor head is dead, I line them up on the floor
just outside the shower door, ready for the bin.

After dressing in my bedroom, I return to throw out said
items, only to find them back on their shelves in the shower. WHY!? STOP IT!
JUST LEAVE MY STUFF ALONE, JESUS CHRIST!

3. Every second
counts.

Despite being blatantly oblivious to 1. Her carbon footprint
and 2. All possible fire risks, Apple’s obsessively turns off every power point
she passes... unless it’s a ceiling fan or a light, those she leaves on
forever. God forbid I plug my phone in to charge, because I’ll come back two
hours later to find the switch off and my phone still very dead on the counter.
Likewise with my toothbrush, kindle, computer, the TV...

Seriously who turns off the TV power point at the wall, then
leaves the ceiling fan on all day? Very rarely, she will turn off stuff WHILE I
AM ACTIVELY USING IT.

This will likely be the trigger that ultimately causes me to
snap.

4. No concept of
time.

“I’ll be two minutes.”

“Two real person minutes or two of your minutes?”

“Two minutes, I’m just making tea and I will be right
there.”

I literally watched a thirty minute documentary before she
reached the living room. What happened in that kitchen? What sort of tea was
prepared that took an entire thirty minutes? We will never know.

This happens every time I want to watch a movie or show that
Apples insists she has to watch too. So four times a week.

5. Failure to return
my things.

“Where are your tweezers?”

“In the top bathroom drawer.”

“No, I borrowed them two days ago from there and now I can’t
find them.”

“...They will never find your body either.”

Things have a place. You use them, clean them, then PUT THEM
BACK IN THEIR FUCKING PLACE! I know 99.9% of people empathise with Apples over
my obsessive tidying and organisation. I can’t even express how little I care.
My house, my stuff, my goddamn rules.

All your little objects: hairbrushes, make up, forks, whatever,
they’re all sad if they can’t go back to their own little houses. Stop making
my tweezers sad.

6. Starting house
fires.

This is pretty much the WORST problem you can ever have with
anyone who shares your living space.

Given I set the microwave on fire last week, completely
destroying it, it also makes me a hypocrite. However that’s two fires to
Apple’s eight thousand and fifty and I am honestly at the stage where I am
frightened to leave her unattended in the house.

Eventually I had to ban oil heaters from the house, because
Apples was always hanging her clothes on them. Overnight. At full heat. She was
managing to scorch them at least twice a week, every winter—full on billowing
smoke and black marks.

She also can’t be trusted with candles, because I came home
to find the bookcase on fire once. Yes, an enclosed wooden bookcase, with a
candle on it. Covered in books and newspapers. The other day I walked into the
kitchen to find she’d wrapped a tea towel around the slow cooker and I burnt
myself moving it, because it was already smouldering.

She acted like I was being unreasonable.

“Why do you put up
with that?”

Sometimes people ask why I live with Apples if she annoys me
so much. The answer is pretty simple. There is someone else who is even MORE
annoying than her. Someone that no sane person would tolerate sharing space
with, who makes Apples look like a perfect, sublime dream.

And that would be me.

If Apples wrote a list like this, it would be her magnum
opus. It would be unfinished when she died, a startling, dystopian horror,
thousands of pages long, dipping into the vast depths of human depravity.

I also put up with her because we’re related and I have to.
Mostly, because of that.

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About Me

Born in 1985, Talitha is a geeky Australian writer who spends an unhealthy amount of time reading and watching horror movies. She also loves fresh water shrimps and snakes, and lives in a house dominated by various tanks housing both. She advises that shrimps are the best companions for writers; as they always look like they are typing. Snakes, on the other hand, simply knock everything off your desk—including keyboards, mugs, entire computers and shrimp tanks.
Talitha’s other interests include entomology, rock climbing, reading, web design, photography and video gaming.